Friday, 14 March 2008

While there were political rows in the media about the number of councils and the Maze stadium, proceeds in the House were fairly restrained. The debate on the Eames/Bradley Consultative Group on the Past tabled by David Burnside enabled him to get a lot of things of this chest about Ian Paisley but did not greatly add to the sum of human knowledge.

Likewise, the debate on the Report of the Assembly Review Committee into the devolution of policing and justice didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. Yes, the parties have made considerable progress on agreeing the mechanics of how it would work but no there was no progress on deciding when it would happen.

Perhaps the most telling remark came from Gerry Adams. In response to considerable provocation from the DUP about how they would block any transfer of policing and justice powers for the foreseeable future, Adams threatened to retaliate by blocking….any idea of a new stadium at Blanchflower Park. Mr Adams has been upping his profile again in recent weeks but as a gesture it revealed more about how Sinn Féin are tied into the process than anything else.